Well...that pretty well concludes one full 12 hour day on Saturday and a few hours yesterday behind the dam. Excuse the poor quality pics, I wasn't about to take my phone out of the zip-lock bag and drop it in the water for these little guys, lol. Everyone I talked to said it had been real slow and I didn't see anyone else catching anything really. I watched one guy pull maybe a 2-3 lb bass up who was fishing live bait but that was it. I caught the fish in the photos plus a couple other small largemouth the same size as the one in the photo and several nice perch. I also hooked up with 2 sandies that got off 5-10 ft before i got em in. Caught the sand bass on a blue/white minnow streamer and a chartruese minnow streamer. Caught the largemouth and perch on a red hopper. I kept seeing red dragonflies here and there, and that was the closest thing I had. Seemed to work. I had maybe a 2 lb bass swim up maybe 6 feet from me and just sit there, but wouldn't eat anything. Overall I had a good time Hopefully I can get over there one of these days when the striper are running hard!

If you look close you can see a v-shaped chunk out of one of the sandbass where my thumb is in the photo. i guess a bird got after him.

Made it out on the river last weekend to do the 20 mile stretch from below the dam to highway 4. The trip started Friday morning with me and buddy fishing directly below the dam while waiting on our other two buddies to join us for the canoe trip. We started right below the dam around 7 and saw a couple of conventional fisherman catch some big striper before the wind got too bad and pushed us downstream.

We fished little channels without much success and decided to try one more spot before going to get something to eat.
We immediately hooked up on some fish and were SHOCKED to pull out 5 of the biggest rainbow trout I've ever caught at pk. The smallest was around 12 inches and the biggest was around 15 and probably 2 pounds. We couldn't believe it, the water was cold but this is easily the latest I've ever landed a trout much less 5 good fish.

We then hit the river around 6 that evening and paddled til we set up camp right about sundown on a great stretch of the river where there was some fast and deep water. Fished a little without much success but saw several decent sized gar. We packed up the next morning and fished our way down river before stopping for a lunch break at what ended up being the best bass hole on the river I would think. We found a spot where a drop of was protected by some rocks and the bass were chasing bait fish out of the water. It didn't matter what we threw, you were catching a fish every other cast for over an hour. Good fish too, some smallies and sand bass, but mostly good sized largemouth. The largemouth ranged from 14-19" and were a blast to fight. We moved on once the hole cooled off and continued down river before setting up camp again for the night we caught a couple white bass and blue gill at camp 2 but nothing like our lunch hole.

All in all it was an incredible trip with great fishing and perfect weather. We really lucked out since the forecast wasn't very friendly the traffic on the river was pretty light. Will definitely be doing this trip again in the fall.

Nice job, guys! Great post!

Nice report. Nice surprise with those rainbows!

Great trip for sure there were trout rising all over up in the plunge pool last time I was up there. I was really shocked how many made there way up there. In great tailwaters trout can put on an inch a month looks about right on growth. Really healthy looking fish. Makes you wonder what the temp is right by the dam. Those may make it another month!

That's awesome! Thanks for sharing. I may have to try and get back down there before too long.

Camping that close is there no risk in the river rising to it on a release?